Stuart M. Gerson, a Member of the Firm in the Litigation and Health Care and Life Sciences practices, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted by Law360, in “Scalia’s Originalism Shifted the Constitutional Debate,” by Jeff Zalesin. (Read the full version – subscription required.)

Following is an excerpt:

Justice Scalia did not shy away from expressing those beliefs. With tongue in cheek, the justice described himself as a supporter of the “dead Constitution,” contending that the “living Constitution” theory favored by many left-leaning jurists enabled what amounted to legislation from the bench, according to Stuart M. Gerson, a member of Epstein Becker Green who served as acting attorney general under President Bill Clinton and led the civil division of the Department of Justice under President George H.W. Bush.

The influence of Justice Scalia’s originalist argument was profound even outside conservative legal circles, Gerson said in an email to Law360.

“Over three decades of service, Justice Scalia not only created and led a conservative bloc of judicial literalists, but his influence led even his opponents on the court to adopt his approach to the historical exercise of determining what the Constitution was understood to mean by its framers,” Gerson said.